


Polarized Perspectives

by RectifiedPear



Category: Balto (Movies)
Genre: Fame, Post-Canon, Short Chapters, TBA - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22524499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RectifiedPear/pseuds/RectifiedPear
Summary: Fame is exhausting, especially for a semi-wild animal. Or maybe there's more to it than that.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

It took months for Balto to be able to slip away from Rosie and Jenna. Decked in his own collar and sled dog attire, he was now an owned dog. He had done a small part for Jenna, but indoor living was not for him. It held an appear, cold nights spent by a warm heater was great, but he'd begun to miss Boris, Muk, Luk, all of the wild. 

Luckily enough he'd learned how humans opened and shut doors and no longer had to break them any, he could pull on the knobs and come and go. Tonight was a calmer night, he'd still be missed if he left, Rosie was clingy, her parents ever grateful.

Even so, he needed a night to breathe. 

The snow yielded under his paws, his breathe showed in great billowing puffs before his eyes. No one was on high alert, the only wolf they'd ever known had been him, and he was their hero now. Other sled dogs had been doted upon, credited for all their hard work, but nothing quite like Balto. 

A hundred dogs easily had made their name, and would pass a legacy of status down, some had died in the mission, remembered but then honored. 

Far from the houses, into the woods, he caught a smell on the wind. He knew that smell, it boiled his blood. Incensed him.

There were no tracks, and Boris warned him after they met and rejoiced, he could see where the smell was coming from. 

Balto turned the heavy snowdrifts against trees to eye the malamute. Those ice blue eyes narrowed upon him as soon as Steele's nose twitched.

Sizing the male up, Balto took in the lack of a collar, chances were he'd been kicked out, or disowned. There were not many injuries, long healed over. It looked like the other dogs had chased him out.

“What?! Come to finally gloat, wolfdog?” He snarled. 

“No.”

“Feels good to have her by your side, right?”

He shifted. “Not really.”

_“What?”_

“It was never about Jenna, it was about the kids.”

“Liar.” Steele rumbled out in vitriol, laying down with his head tilted to the side. “You did it all to impress that sweet piece of ass.”

“No. I'm not like you, Steele.”

“Mutt.”

“That's not it either.” Balto pushed past. 

Rising to his paws, Steele took after him, posture low and close to the ground.

Boris shadowed both overhead, eyes narrowed. “He's after you, Balto!” 

“I'm aware.”

“The brave Balto, a wolfdog mutt, runt abandoned by his parents. Saving human children.” The malamute's tongue clicked repeatedly. “All for a bitch like Jenna.” Becoming smug at the exasperated sigh, he drew closer, glibly chirping out, “Does she feel good, Ball-to?”

“No, actually.” 

He pulled farther from the purebred again.

“Liar, I bet she feels real great- wait-” somewhere among his words he'd head what Balto had begun to say, it was hard to pick out now, his small ears craned forward and his pupils shrank. “What. Was. That?” Silence. The wolfdog kept walking. Steele lunged in front of him, a flurry of snow assaulting the mutt's eyes. Everything within him was bracing to kill the mutt here and now, he had everything Steele wanted, and he was aloof to it.

Balto pushed past him anew.

“I said,”

He spoke, not slowing down any. 

“It's not a lie, Steele. I didn't do it for Jenna.”

His muscles trembled under the pressure of his clenched jaw. The words weren't what he'd heard. 

Then he heard them again. Deadpan and clear.

“I don't like girls like that.”


	2. Chapter 2

Didn't like girls like that... Steele's lip curled and he swung into a fast gait behind Balto, the words flung from his mouth bitter and angry. “So what?! You like guys then?”

“Yes.”

“Spent your life crawling through the mud and staring at other dog's behinds!”

“Yes, Steele.”

“You hated being at the front of the sled!” 

“Yes!” 

Balto rounded on him and bristled as big as he could, fur and hackles all over his body making him look more like a porcupine than a wolfdog. “Congrats, you got it. I like helping kids out and dogs of the male persuasion.”

Steele bore down and snarled, “And Jenna?” 

The dark brown eyes rolling into Balto's head almost got him struck. “You never read the room, you came on too hard, too strong, and she just didn't want you. She found we could be friends and I was a romantic at heart, something you weren't, then it just carried on. She feels things I don't. Wanted puppies I didn't. So I got her full of pups and now I'm gone.”

“Gone? Gone where!” Steele's small paws were covered by Balto's.

“I like the wild. I like being outside. Not living there, but living among humans, but you know yourself that I'm no dog.”

Paws pulled away, Steele watched as Balto left and vanished into the snow. It was anger that kept Steele warm and anger that kept him glaring at faint tracks. The lack of snow meant they did not fade away, and even as Steele angrily smashed the first few sets, he could not erase a small dotted path where Balto had went. 

But what did he care? So his rival was gay and couldn't be with Jenna, Steele could! 

“Nobody gets between me and my prize –“ Fat with Balto's pups, not interested, and a snobby bitch who would let him lay dead in a hole, that was Jenna. She could be made to love him, but it left a bitter acrid taste in his mouth. Forcing Jenna was work and work was what he'd been doing for years without credit. He was in his prime for the next few years, and Jenna was clearly beneath him! She was carrying wolfdog puppies of her own volition if Balto was not lying. 

Jenna wanted them. Balto didn't.

Steele didn't want puppies either, yappy little things he had to pretend he was proud of. Competition for his fame, his role in life. It was a simple place now, having been knocked down by Balto, but it was his. Puppies would take it away. That's why he looked all over for lovely breeds outside his own to have fun with, who would want a Pomeranian as a sled dog? Or any of the ones he'd fooled around with?

Steele followed the tracks for yard after yard, feet picking up from a walk to a run. “Fine, wolfdog, let's talk.” He said to himself as he went over a bluff of snow and kept on Balto's scent. A speck in the sky was a goose, Boris, this wouldn't be hard to track. “Steeley's going to getcha!” 

The wolfdog was a moving brown blur in the distance, neither looking behind nor to the sides. He marked trees and walked along the town, Steele rounded an alley and regained sight of Balto. To anyone else he betted it would come across as play. Why yes, the doggies were out for a play. “Slow down, hairball!” His barks got a soft grumbling reply, but Balto did not stop his walk to retort. Stuck up little wolfdog...


	3. Chapter 3

Steele had fucked many a female. Fooled around and likely made mutts, just as Balto had done to Jenna before splitting. He bore down on Balto's gap, a spanse between them not that far. Boris was a target in the sky, not far from the wolfdog, even if Steele sauntered slowly, he could find Balto and catch him in his sleep. 

He'd never really done much with males, his own sled team was blithering idiots who often got their butts stuck to icicles and ate yellow snow. The idea of curling beside one of their smelly hides for more than warmth during severe storms was disgusting. Kaltag often had fleas, which somehow, survived the cold to make Steele's nose itch. Nikki stank and had a face only a trashcan could love. No. Steele had never seen a male that looked to his taste.

Soft, yielding, caving under him in just the right way, not the way Star or the others did when he bore his teeth. They no longer did such now. So Balto was gay, he had no options unless he was less picky than Steele.

“So, wolfdog,” he snapped, teeth clicking an inch from a brown ear. “Who have you been mounting, surely it isn't the goose.”

“He's practically a father figure.” He was shrugged off, and Steele kicked some snow at Balto's back. “No, Steele, I haven't been doing some mass mounting spree, not like you.”

“Bold of you to assume.”

Gold and brown eyes looked back at him, Balto tilted his head to the side. “People talk, Jenna knew all about you before you knew her. Maybe you should get with less boastful dogs.”

Steele's teeth were cinched together as he pulled his head back and stared downward upon the wolfdog. “She tell you that?”

“Yes, as did everyone else. If you recall, I wasn't quite so hated until you began making me such. Females didn't find me repulsive until their owners did.” His tail swept under Steele's chin.

“So who did you discover your filthy faggot ways with?” That's what people like his owners called them, so that was the right term, wasn't it? There were bitches, studs, and now there was a fag. 

“Gay. Just gay. Humans say that word with hatred.”

“Liiiike wolfdog?”

Balto rolled his eyes and walked over a bluff of snow, not even bothering to tell Steele off. It incensed the purebred, and he chased him down, grumbling when he was darted away from or circled around. 

“I'm not playing around, Steele.”

He braced himself, muscles taut. “Neither am I, what's it like being with stinky males?” 

A laugh, Balto's ears pulled back and he howled with laughter. His attention divided, Steele leaped, and tackled him into the snow. It took a deep heaving breath from Balto's chest, and left him kicking at Steele's face with a back leg, but Steele had him underneath his hold.   
“Get. Off.”

“Where are you going out here?”

“Away, to my usual spots.”

Steele bounded off, dodging a bite to his tail, but getting a foot chomped down onto. “A stinky guy friend waiting for your knot?”

“Why?” Something crept into Balto's tone, exhausted as it was, it perked up. “Want to watch?”

He stepped back, disgust masked curiosity. Balto turned his back and took off again. “No!” He yelled at the retreating mutt. “I would never watch two filthy mutts have sex with each other, nor wolves!” Were his words true, however, he wouldn't be following Boris still. What if Balto was with a wolf? Steele had never seen a real wolf before.


	4. Chapter 4

The old abandoned trawler was as it always had been. Steele eyed it with contempt as the wolfdog returned to it and relaxed. It was his home, that's what Balto's body language said. His home, his one place he wanted to be. 

Steele paced.

He paced and paced.

And paced.

Balto didn't come out, and that meant the angry husky wanted to slap his paw across the mouthy wolfdog for ever talking to him how he had. Yet a scuffle here would just end with wounded egos. Steele hated him. He wanted to cock his leg up and mark Balto like a female dog beneath him or a tree, make him part of his territory and property – 

A cold breeze snapped him from being cross-eyed, too angry to understand what had just crossed his brain. He hated Balto. Climbing wood planks, Steele made his way onto the deck of the trawler, the boat's wood creaked beneath him. 

A hoard of blankets housed the wolfdog, his pigeon not far from him. Both looked content. Steele stared down Balto's comfortable form. He hated him, he hated that this – this messy heap of blankets and fluff was what Balto had left Jenna for. That he'd played pretend just to leave anew. He had everything Steele wanted.

Boris honked in his sleep, not heeding the malamute's presence at all. No one minded him there. His blood boiled.

It bubbled.

His anger went over the brim.

“WHAT is the meaning of this?”

One brown ear twitched, one brown eye opened, rolled up to look at him, blinked. “This is my home.”

“Rosie?! Jenna! The sled life, being one of us? Does any of that mean a lick to you?!”

Balto stretched, casually yawning as he worked his body into relaxing. “It seemed like all I wanted, but really I just wanted a chance.”

“And now?!”

“Pipe down loud dog.” Boris muttered, tucking his head under a wing.

“I just don't want it, Steele. If you want to go back and work for it, get it all back, be my guest.” His eyes shut fully, he buried his nose under some rags. His breath evened out.

Steele sat down. He waited.

He seethed. 

How dare Balto. How dare he be nothing like Steele assumed he was. No boasting, no bragging. He dared not rub Steele's nose in it, dared to not fight him. Steele wanted nothing more than violence then and there. 

He sat.

He breathed in anger, and exhaled patience.

Balto was the biggest piss off he'd ever met. He was the biggest rival, the being who didn't back down. He had done all of it, and none of the rewards had been taken.

Steele's tail became straight, it moved swiftly side to side, agitation tingling his paws. “Get up.”

“No.”

“I said get up!” 

Balto's head lazily rose. “Say what you need to say or take a nap, Steele.”

The absurdity made his ears pull backwards and him snarl. Him! Sleep in rags that had never been washed? What was this wolfdog on, had he caught rabies or some form of stupid from the cold? Steele opened his mouth to snarl, to bite down. 

He shut his mouth. 

Anger rumbling in his chest, Steele laid down, as far from Balto as he could. As soon as he was turned to face the boat's wall, Balto smiled.


End file.
